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A year ago no one outside of Najaf had heard of Moqtada Sadr. Today in Iraq he is Enemy No. 1.

Search the newspaper databases and you won't find one article on the 30-year-old Shiite demagogue before April last year. No one outside the cloistered clerical circles of Najaf knew much about either pedigree or ambition of the black-turbaned cult figure who calls the 9/11 attacks "a miracle of God." Yet a year later he has raised an army, taken over the Shiites' most holy city, challenged the longtime spiritual leadership of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and successfully mounted attacks on U.S. forces.

With fierce fighting afoot in the south and tensions high in Fallujah, coalition strategists are looking hard at Mr. Sadr's rapid rise.In a country where clerics are respected for the gray hairs in their beard, how did this young maverick so quickly win fear and a following?

Most likely with the help of Iran.

Observers say it is an open secret that Iran is supporting insurgency militias with dinars as well as dogma. Hardliners in Iran's 25-year-old fundamentalist theocracy see poetic justice in the rise of a radical of their own in Najaf, where the founder of their own revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, once studied.

Mr. Sadr receives orders directly from Iran's head of state, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a briefing prepared by Italian intelligence and defense forces for the Italian parliament earlier this month. (At least four Italians have been kidnapped in southern Iraq, one killed.) The report said Mr. Sadr could not have mounted simultaneous attacks in the past month—from Baghdad to Basrah—without political, military, and financial support from the ayatollah.

Agents from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards have infiltrated Iraq in recent months to arm and organize Mr. Sadr's troops, working under cover of Islamic charity groups in Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf, and Kufa. The Italians say Ayatollah Khameini's government is spending $70 million a month to prop up the front organizations. Coordinating the efforts is Iranian cleric Mohammad-Hossein Haeri, an ally to Mr. Khamenei.

British intelligence agents say they also have evidence of Iran's role in the most recent fighting: documents from two Iranian intelligence agents who recently defected in London.

What is puzzling is why U.S. forces have not done more to secure Iraq's vast border with Iran, where as many as 10,000 Iranians cross per day. Also baffling is why the Bush administration is negotiating with Iranian leaders—summoning Iran's deputy foreign minister from Tehran to Washington—to negotiate a deal to capture Mr. Sadr.

The Bush administration may believe it can play hardliners against moderates in Iran, but there is no question whose side Iranian leaders are on. Not surprisingly, the diplomatic effort failed—just as they would like the overall U.S. campaign in Iraq to fail.

Mr. Sadr's fighters, known as the Mehdi Army, are behind repeated attacks on U.S. forces in Sadr City, a dusty enclave of donkey carts and open sewage in Baghdad. There the Shiite slumlord recruited a militia of as many as 1 million men, mostly by promising welfare on the cheap through Tehran-backed charities.

Saddam Hussein, who executed Mr. Sadr's father in 1999, punished his Shiite opponents by impoverishing them. At night Sadr City is a lampless void from which businesses have fled but crime flourishes. Now every young jobless man's anger has turned to America.

"A year ago, I killed the Italian soldier who owned this rifle," a guard boasted to British reporters outside Mr. Sadr's headquarters in Najaf, 110 miles south of Baghdad, where Mr. Sadr and much of his militia preside. "If God is willing, I shall use it to finish off the Americans in Iraq."

After skirmishes in Fallujah and the string of car bombings in Basrah, U.S. forces expect a battle in Najaf. But they are showing unusual restraint in the face of Sadr militants, putting up a strong show of force only outside the city. "If the Americans invade Najaf, it won't only be Moqtada Sadr's people who fight—all the people will fight," Dawa Party leader Walid Hilli told the BBC. "Najaf doesn't belong to Moqtada Sadr. It doesn't even belong to the Shias. It belongs to all Muslims. It is like invading the Vatican," he said.

Sadr-inspired threats finally persuaded Spanish forces in southern Iraq to an early but not unexpected exit from Iraq. Honduran troops followed. If Mr. Sadr knows he is vulnerable to U.S. seizure, in the alleyways of southern Iraq he has appeared to be Teflon-coated.

But Mr. Sadr is not assured of popular support among Iraqi Shiites and is rejected by most Shiite leaders as too youthful and uneducated. In fact, he has used similar guerrilla tactics on Shiite rivals as on coalition forces. Last October he surrounded the Najaf mosque controlled by Mr. Sistani and a shrine in Karbala, incursions thwarted by U.S. forces. Iraqi authorities have a warrant for his arrest in the assassination of another Shiite leader, Ayatollah Abu Qasem Khoie, and he is suspected in the murder of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

Shiites hold a slight majority in Iraq (60 percent), while they have near-complete dominance (93 percent) in Iran. Long disenfranchised from Iraqi politics, Shiite clerics see the current instability as a rare opportunity to expand political control in the region. To accomplish it, they will need help from Tehran.

But in the wider Muslim world Shiites are a decided minority. Known as the dissenters, they broke with more traditional Sunni Muslims in the years following the prophet Muhammad's death over how to choose his successor. Sunnis favored choosing by consensus while Shiites demanded a successor from the family line. To this day Shiites favor debate and revolution over consensus politics. For every three Shiites, one observation goes, come six opinions.

That may be the best way to explain the Bush administration's frustrated diplomacy over the latest fighting and terrorism. But it doesn't move Iraqis closer to prospects for a stable handover, or ease mounting coalition casualties while Mr. Sadr is on the loose.

A year ago no one outside of Najaf had heard of Moqtada Sadr. Today in Iraq he is Enemy No. 1.

Search the newspaper databases and you won't find one article on the 30-year-old Shiite demagogue before April last year. No one outside the cloistered clerical circles of Najaf knew much about either pedigree or ambition of the black-turbaned cult figure who calls the 9/11 attacks "a miracle of God." Yet a year later he has raised an army, taken over the Shiites' most holy city, challenged the longtime spiritual leadership of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and successfully mounted attacks on U.S. forces.

With fierce fighting afoot in the south and tensions high in Fallujah, coalition strategists are looking hard at Mr. Sadr's rapid rise.In a country where clerics are respected for the gray hairs in their beard, how did this young maverick so quickly win fear and a following?

Most likely with the help of Iran.

Observers say it is an open secret that Iran is supporting insurgency militias with dinars as well as dogma. Hardliners in Iran's 25-year-old fundamentalist theocracy see poetic justice in the rise of a radical of their own in Najaf, where the founder of their own revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, once studied.

Mr. Sadr receives orders directly from Iran's head of state, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a briefing prepared by Italian intelligence and defense forces for the Italian parliament earlier this month. (At least four Italians have been kidnapped in southern Iraq, one killed.) The report said Mr. Sadr could not have mounted simultaneous attacks in the past month—from Baghdad to Basrah—without political, military, and financial support from the ayatollah.

Agents from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards have infiltrated Iraq in recent months to arm and organize Mr. Sadr's troops, working under cover of Islamic charity groups in Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf, and Kufa. The Italians say Ayatollah Khameini's government is spending $70 million a month to prop up the front organizations. Coordinating the efforts is Iranian cleric Mohammad-Hossein Haeri, an ally to Mr. Khamenei.

British intelligence agents say they also have evidence of Iran's role in the most recent fighting: documents from two Iranian intelligence agents who recently defected in London.

What is puzzling is why U.S. forces have not done more to secure Iraq's vast border with Iran, where as many as 10,000 Iranians cross per day. Also baffling is why the Bush administration is negotiating with Iranian leaders—summoning Iran's deputy foreign minister from Tehran to Washington—to negotiate a deal to capture Mr. Sadr.

The Bush administration may believe it can play hardliners against moderates in Iran, but there is no question whose side Iranian leaders are on. Not surprisingly, the diplomatic effort failed—just as they would like the overall U.S. campaign in Iraq to fail.

Mr. Sadr's fighters, known as the Mehdi Army, are behind repeated attacks on U.S. forces in Sadr City, a dusty enclave of donkey carts and open sewage in Baghdad. There the Shiite slumlord recruited a militia of as many as 1 million men, mostly by promising welfare on the cheap through Tehran-backed charities.

Saddam Hussein, who executed Mr. Sadr's father in 1999, punished his Shiite opponents by impoverishing them. At night Sadr City is a lampless void from which businesses have fled but crime flourishes. Now every young jobless man's anger has turned to America.

"A year ago, I killed the Italian soldier who owned this rifle," a guard boasted to British reporters outside Mr. Sadr's headquarters in Najaf, 110 miles south of Baghdad, where Mr. Sadr and much of his militia preside. "If God is willing, I shall use it to finish off the Americans in Iraq."

After skirmishes in Fallujah and the string of car bombings in Basrah, U.S. forces expect a battle in Najaf. But they are showing unusual restraint in the face of Sadr militants, putting up a strong show of force only outside the city. "If the Americans invade Najaf, it won't only be Moqtada Sadr's people who fight—all the people will fight," Dawa Party leader Walid Hilli told the BBC. "Najaf doesn't belong to Moqtada Sadr. It doesn't even belong to the Shias. It belongs to all Muslims. It is like invading the Vatican," he said.

Sadr-inspired threats finally persuaded Spanish forces in southern Iraq to an early but not unexpected exit from Iraq. Honduran troops followed. If Mr. Sadr knows he is vulnerable to U.S. seizure, in the alleyways of southern Iraq he has appeared to be Teflon-coated.

But Mr. Sadr is not assured of popular support among Iraqi Shiites and is rejected by most Shiite leaders as too youthful and uneducated. In fact, he has used similar guerrilla tactics on Shiite rivals as on coalition forces. Last October he surrounded the Najaf mosque controlled by Mr. Sistani and a shrine in Karbala, incursions thwarted by U.S. forces. Iraqi authorities have a warrant for his arrest in the assassination of another Shiite leader, Ayatollah Abu Qasem Khoie, and he is suspected in the murder of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.

Shiites hold a slight majority in Iraq (60 percent), while they have near-complete dominance (93 percent) in Iran. Long disenfranchised from Iraqi politics, Shiite clerics see the current instability as a rare opportunity to expand political control in the region. To accomplish it, they will need help from Tehran.

But in the wider Muslim world Shiites are a decided minority. Known as the dissenters, they broke with more traditional Sunni Muslims in the years following the prophet Muhammad's death over how to choose his successor. Sunnis favored choosing by consensus while Shiites demanded a successor from the family line. To this day Shiites favor debate and revolution over consensus politics. For every three Shiites, one observation goes, come six opinions.

That may be the best way to explain the Bush administration's frustrated diplomacy over the latest fighting and terrorism. But it doesn't move Iraqis closer to prospects for a stable handover, or ease mounting coalition casualties while Mr. Sadr is on the loose.

Ignoring the Terror Masters and not helping pro American freedom-loving Iranian people for pleasing the British and EU colonists is the biggest mistake by Bush Admin . U.S. is spending billion dollars a week in Iraq but we have not spent any serious money to help freedom-loving Iranian people who are pro American and pro freedom. Why?
Who is controlling U.S. foreign policy? Jack Straw, Tony Blair or President Bush.

Quote:

Agents from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards have infiltrated Iraq in recent months to arm and organize Mr. Sadr's troops, working under cover of Islamic charity groups in Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf, and Kufa. The Italians say Ayatollah Khameini's government is spending $70 million a month to prop up the front organizations. Coordinating the efforts is Iranian cleric Mohammad-Hossein Haeri, an ally to Mr. Khamenei.

British intelligence agents say they also have evidence of Iran's role in the most recent fighting: documents from two Iranian intelligence agents who recently defected in London.

For months Iran has focused on a "creeping takeover" strategy in Iraq. This strategy is based on two pillars: One is dispatching clerics to Iraq and positioning them on religious pulpits developing a network that takes over civil affairs and services such as humanitarian aid. The second is forming a broad range of covert armed cells to organize attacks against the coalition forces, attempt terrorist acts and take hostages.

The mullahs' tactic of using crises and presenting themselves as a party to solution has been a usual method since the inception of the Islamic Republic. Taking American diplomats hostage in Iran in the 1970s and in Lebanon in the 1980s are similar instances of this policy. This time, Tehran has two grand objectives: the ambition longed by Khomeini of expanding the "Islamic" empire into Iraq and potentially influencing U.S. elections henceforth.

In the wake of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the Iranian regime has furthered its long-held malicious intentions by taking advantage of the enthusiasm of Iranian pilgrims to visit the Shia holy city of Karbala. Among these "pilgrims" are herds of secret agents and Revolutionary Guards, who gradually are infiltrating Iraqi mosques and pulpits to use the current circumstances in that country to impose their dark hegemony on the people. The footprints are clearly recognized in southern cities, particularly Basra.

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most powerful cleric after the mullahs' leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a former president, on April 16 said that the U.S. occupation of Iraq was both "an opportunity and a threat, for this wounded giant … if it is taught a lesson, neither the United States nor any other superpower would ever think of engaging in military adventures by occupying other nations."

The mullahs in Iran are cleverly manipulating the religious sentiments of Iraqi people much the same way as they did in Iran in 1979. Influence on the emotions of the masses (by abusing these sentiments) and economic power are two determining factors in giving direction toward forming fundamentalist organizations. We have already experienced this in Iran. In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini took advantage of the political vacuum created by the shah's suppression of democratic revolutionary forces. Khomeini, despite his claim that he was "a religious scholar and would have nothing to do with politics," gradually hijacked the political and military powers to establish a government that is now "the leading state sponsor of terrorism."

In my March 31 interview with the Voice of America Farsi program I pointed out the threat from Iran and said: "In post-Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a power vacuum -- though in a different form than that of 1979 Iran -- exists. Mullahs in Tehran are supplying money and their version of `Islam' to fill this vacuum. When this power grab is realized, then the mullahs now creeping into mosques will come out and seize the political levers and the instability will prevail."

This is particularly significant in a U.S. election year. The leaders of the Islamic Republic regime have another goal and that is to influence the U.S. elections. They believe that the United States is extremely vulnerable during the election year, and they can receive concessions from Americans.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, in his April 14 interview with Agence France Presse, declared: "In a meeting with the foreign ministry delegation who arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday, a U.S. coalition official informed them that their mediation was unwelcome. `In fact, we believe that the issue with Sadr and his militia should be resolved by Iraqis, not Iranians.'" Later, on April 15, Kharrazi said to reporters: "How can we mediate between the occupiers and the people of Iraq?"

The Iranian regime is neither a solution nor a means for achieving a solution to peace and stability in Iraq -- or in the region, for that matter. For the last 25 years, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, we have witnessed the hostage-taking and terrorist actions of this regime. There is no doubt that the theocratic-dictatorship would have achieved the highest "award" for "principal state sponsoring terrorism."

This fact is simple: As long as the regime in Tehran is not changed, nobody in Iraq -- as the Persian saying goes -- "will drink a soothing water."

Nasser Rashidi is executive director of the National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates, a Washington, D.C.-based group promoting human rights and socio-economic justice in Iran.

You are such a loser whoever is running this wack website. It makes you burn that Mojahedin are the only people who will ever be able to free Iran. Its o.k besooz. You probably also thought that Mojahedin would be attacked by the U.S. during this war in Iraq too. Didn't happen though did it. Besooz mozdoor!

[...]
We believe that fundamentalism and terrorism will continue to threaten the world so long as the mullahs remain in power in Iran. We therefore urge the European Union:

- To remove the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran from its list of terrorist organizations;
[...]
We believe that support for the democratic goals of the National Council of Resistance of Iran coalition will contribute to respect for human rights in Iran and promote peace and tranquillity in the region.